It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind. Chris Hedges

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

This is one of those (rarer these days) posts to express some idea of where we are headed as a collective body. Its like finding everybody you hold, in respect and love, attending a drug-fueled satanic ritual involving the sacrifice of your baby brother. It is a time when innocence and childish things are lost forever.

The year began with so much promise. True; the economy was in a tatters, but when Obama was inaugurated all but the most cold-hearted of neo-cons had to feel some degree of hope that 'here was the man who might lead us out of the darkness'. Now it appears we are being led towards Armageddon instead of Camelot.

The amount of money in circulation is double what it was this time last year and there is nothing to demonstrate new industry or ideas. Instead, the government is the only growth industry today. Wars are expanded, industry nationalized, and new taxes in the form of carbon credits are soon to be felt in a country that is running out of customers for the never ending auction of treasury bonds offered, week after week. This week the 5yr bond auction failed, like a sharp chest pain to someone with heart disease.

The FDIC, backstopping what is left of peoples' savings, is broke. This year, two million Americans face a Christmas having exhausted the last of their unemployment insurance. California is bankrupt and is issuing IOUs to contractors and suppliers. Michigan is dead. Futures trading in food and oil show skyrocketing increases on the horizon. This October will see bank runs, a currency failure, and a fresh tsunami of housing foreclosures and job losses.

The stock market has become bloated with disease. Stock prices continue to rise, despite any earnings, growth, or dividends. Dark pools of traders meet in hidden rooms behind the hum of racks of servers plugged into the matrix of global trading, skimming pennies off the blind by the supertanker load. There is no regulation, no oversight, no justice for the impoverished retirees at the hands of bankers who have lost their humanity. Moral hazard... indeed.

And presiding over this band of merry pranksters is "The One". He's a perfect choice really. His color deflects any criticism with cries of racism. His manner is reminiscent of a newly elected JFK, but slowly the veil is being lifted to reveal the Wizard as nothing more than an actor. The Congress is a hen house full of blatherers. Content with their C-Span moment, they cannot fathom their complicity in the greatest fraud ever to take place.

Another war won't fix it: Nobody will be lining up to buy war bonds for an institution now regarded as an enemy. As Oliver Stone wrote, "Charlie is out there... and he's hungry.' So all that's left is to huddle behind the ring of nuclear might and blackmail the nations of the world to submit, if they don't collapse first.

Or will the unthinkable happen: that the elites will unleash a pandemic among its denizens and neighbours in a last stand effort to turn back the clock to a time when there was plenty for everybody. Once more Americans will be told to stand in line for the shots. This time, it may be a soylent concoction with the real intent of removing all but the most essential from among us. Carbon footprint erased, all debts eliminated, and resources enough for another millennium of V8 cruising and malteds at the corner store.